Irumbu Thirai movie review: Not Vishal or Samantha, Arjun's taut performance is the highlight of this patchy thriller

Vishal’s Irumbu Thirai, directed by PS Mithran_,_ is an edge of the seat, compelling cyber–crime thriller. What makes the film tick is its topicality with the Aadhar controversy and recent Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal. The story is about Major Kathiravan (Vishal) who has anger management issues; it’s something that keeps him away from his family in his village. He is asked by the army to get counselling from Rathi Devi (Samantha), a psychologist, and get an NOC if he wants to continue in the army. Devi advises him to chill and take a break with his father (Delhi Ganesh). He goes to the village, slowly changes for the better and ends up helping his father get a loan for his sister’s wedding. They use the help of an agent to get the loan using forged documents. [caption id=“attachment_4465763” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Vishal and Arjun in a still from Irumbu Thirai. Image from Youtube.[/caption] To their horror, they discover that the money in the account has been stolen by cyber thieves. Even Kathiravan is helpless against this unknown yet formidable enemy. Kathiravan decides to hunt down the cyber criminals. There he finds out about the “White Devil” (Arjun), a master hacker and a ruthless villain. A character in the film refers to him as the “don of the digital world”. His motto – “information is wealth”. Irumbu Thirai has all elements of a racy entertainer with family sentiments thrown in along with a top notch technical team and atmospheric background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The cat and mouse game being played out by Vishal, and the elusive antagonist “white devil” played by Arjun is the highlight of the film. The villain is introduced only in the interval block, heightening the tension. The first half moves at a leisurely pace with an unnecessary romantic angle between the army officer and the psychologist. Luckily they don’t sing romantic songs. It is the last 20 minutes that contains the meat of the film. As a villain who uses his brain more than muscles, it is Arjun (the original action king of the ’80s) who steals the show, with a terrific performance. Vishal does a neat job as the angry army officer forced to go in search of the guy who duped his family. Samantha’s character provides requisite relevance as the female lead and is a delight in the light hearted moments of the film. Yuvan Shankar Raja’s background score is in sync with theme of the film. The drawback of the film is its length, which is nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes. There is a considerable lag in the first half. Arjun’s character also leaves you with some unanswered questions. On the whole, Irumbu Thirai is a well made film that addresses the burning question of today’s day and age: Is our privacy compromised?